


rises and falls over time

by spocklee



Category: Supernatural
Genre: lily sunder shit, time travel antics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-18 12:22:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29368449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spocklee/pseuds/spocklee
Summary: Dean gets sent to the past. Cas meets him for-the-first-time for the second time.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 24
Kudos: 121





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> title from 'the great unknown' by ezra furman. i'm not a historian and neither are the spn writers so we're all on the same page here

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: can i stop writing fic in quarantine and finish my own projects instead  
> the council of elders in my head who decide what i do: hm. no

A man in a faded suit and a bowler hat glanced at him like _he_ was the one walking around in a goofy outfit. Dean bounced his eyebrows at him. _Yeah, get a good look, pal. Send your fucking tailor over too if he wants to get some ideas._ Then a second man, in a similar suit and with a severely dressed woman on his arm, walked by Dean with a glare. Dean realized the road was dirt. He did not know how he got here or why he standing in the middle of a dirt road while a man passing by on horseback spat near his feet. The view down the street was wooden porches, a brick building with white pillars, more horses, more long dresses and pinned hair. A quaint church at the end. It smelled different. It was quieter. No cars. No asphalt.

_Time travel? No, that shit isn’t real–_

And then, as he had so often had to do, he closed his eyes and grit his teeth, and remembered, it very much was. 

-

He’d gone into the church. It was that or the brick building where there might be some kind of government, or the tavern where there would be some kind of booz. The government might not like his clothes and the tavern wouldn’t like his money. The church might not like anything about him at all, but he figured they were under the heavy and bossy pressure of the big guy to at least hear him out.

He rubbed some dirt on his face before he stepped in. He asked for the pastor and wished he had a hat to hold in his hands as he asked for work to keep his idle hands busy, and oh was that hard to say with a straight face. He wished Sam or Cas were here if only to see him and the way he had to fight back a smile as the pastor sighed and led him to a box of musty clothes to choose from and a closet with a broom and some rags. 

He got on his knees in the church to clean the pews. No Pinesol, but a greasy solution that smelled like alcohol and citrus all the same. The plan wasn’t so different than it had been many times before; get some money to figure out where you’re gonna sleep and eat first, and then worry about the rest. Lucky for him at least, being stuck in time was just a little bit enough like being stuck in the middle of anywhere else. 

Something near him shuddered like birds flushing out of a tree and he flinched in turn; he hadn’t noticed that he was getting close to a woman praying. She looked down at him with wide shocked eyes, but as he looked back at her and resisted the urge to grin, she began to look more puzzled. This made him look puzzled. They stared at each other.

“Do I know you?” she asked.

“No, ma’am, I’m pretty sure you don’t,” he considered something, “Can I ask your last name?”

“Crocker,” so not anybody’s great-great grandma as far as he knew.

“Nice to meet you. I’m–” oh, fuck it, “Dean Winchester.”

“Like the rifle?”

“Like the rifle but no relation. Sorry for scaring you.”

-

He made enough money at the church to slink into the bar and eat some of the blandest but freshest food he’d ever had, and then up to his room. He could already imagine telling Sam, _and it wasn’t even the worst motel we ever stayed at._

He laid in bed in the dark. It was an okay room. Not even that small. His thoughts came in bursts. No credit card fraud to do here. Turning tricks might not be welcome. That was a thought he hadn’t pulled out of the bottom of storage in awhile. He needed to afford board and three meals a day. What kind of work could he do? This was a little bit like being a cowboy. He missed Sam. He missed Cas. He missed Jack, and mom, and a lot of other people. He missed dad, except no, he didn’t, but the thought still came and went. Whatever he’d done to get sent here, he wished it had sent someone to solve it with. He was meant to be alone. This was punishment for something. Being alone and sent away was always punishment for something. He could probably do physical labor. He could be a marshall and collect bounties. Cowboy shit. He wasn’t too good at poker, had never gotten good at hiding when he was smug. There were still sounds in the bar below, didn’t these people fear God or something and had to be in bed by a certain time? That woman in the church had been so strange and startling. Blue eyes, dark hair.

_Cas, if you’re out there, and exist across time, please help me. You might not know me yet or maybe you do, but it’s Dean._

Something small scratched at the backdoor of his brain, something that insisted he was missing something important. He fell asleep.

-

The pastor liked his work ethic well enough but it was a small church and there was only so much to clean, and he said that Mr. Winchester should go to city hall and ask for some work there with Pastor Harken’s recommendation. Mr. Winchester walked down the street and nodded at passerby and tried not to hate the feeling of a hat on his head, and at city hall they told him to go help at the ranch if he wanted work. Well, how far is that, Mister Mayor? It’s a three mile walk from here, Mr. Winchester, so you better get walking.

They laughed at him for not knowing anything about horses or cows. He ended up shoveling shit in the stables, the horses staring at him in that timeless way at least, their leagues-deep eyes just as enigmatic and eerie as ever. He muttered out loud to them.

“You know, if they needed someone to drive stick I’d be in higher demand. They better invent the damn car soon.”

The horses shuffled and sniffed. He winced at the pain in his back.

Back at the inn, with a little more money than before, smelling not so much like alcohol and lemon. _Sam, you would not understand how wonderful motel showers are until you actually had to live without them._ He rubbed at himself with the little rag and the bin of water. He tried to wash his clothes in the rest of it, and realized they’d be wet and cold by the time he had to wake up to begin walking to work. He laid his forehead on his forearm. He was already so tired. It already felt so late in the day. He had to figure out what was going on at some point.

_Please, someone come get me. I’m so tired. Cas, please. Please._

He crawled into bed, back aching but so tired he fell asleep instantly.

-

He woke up before dawn. He didn’t have a way of telling time unless he walked downstairs and squinted at the grandfather clock in the dark that was probably off anyways. He wore his old clothes underneath his new, wet clothes to at least keep some kind of warm. He started walking to the ranch.

By the time he was out of town, he was freezing. During the day it was temperate, and he’d actually gotten a little warm walking yesterday morning. But now it was still basically night, and the earth was seeping cold out of it in a fog and there was a white, lacy frost like mold on the leaves of the plants around him. His raggedy secondhand church clothes were still wet and cold through the layers. At least he’d given his real name in town, so Sam might one day in the 21st century be able to find records of a Dean Winchester, dumb sonuvabitch, dying of exposure in the late 1800s. Closure, that would be something. When was it willpower and when was it just being dumb enough to think he could get away with something like this on willpower alone? He supposed it all depended on if he died or not.

He huddled against a tree among the thin woods that bordered the road on one side, the pastures on the other. Maybe he could wait until dawn. Maybe this would actually be pretty peaceful. _But no,_ the thought came _I don’t want to die–_ and the important punctuation, _alone._

He put his hands together, feeling clammy in his damp clothes, and said, “Cas. I don’t know if I’m going to die but I feel pretty miserable. Please come get my sorry ass. Bring a space heater and a laundromat and a burrito. I forgot to eat breakfast.”

There was a rush of wind, but that only made him colder. Suddenly he noticed his shadow– it had been too dark too see it before, but now it lay clearly before him. He walked back into the road and turned to see the source of light.

Something was falling from the sky, a shooting star that had curved loose and was embering down, a firework in reverse. The gold light disappeared into the thick of the woods. He did not see it land. He thought, well, that’s something. And then curled up against a tree and lost consciousness.

-

He woke up in the church again. Goddamn respawn point. His clothes were dry. He felt clearheaded and warm. His back hurt like hell from lying on the pew. Daylight came through the windows, meaning he’d missed his chance to work at the ranch again. Well, fuck ‘em.

The pastor was shocked to see him. Dean just told him the truth. He’d been walking early in the cold and the dark and then he’d prayed and found himself safe here. You got any work to do?

The pastor sighed and asked him to clean the windows. Dean grinned, and then thought of something.

“Hey, you ever heard of an angel named Cas?”

“Who?”

Oh, wait a minute, genius, Cas wasn’t his name, “Castiel?”

He resisted describing him, _little guy in a trenchcoat, looks sad all the time, if you thought I was dressed weird when you met me then you’d be in for a treat,_ and the pastor frowned and said no.

Enough money to scrape by another night at the inn. He kept his clothes dry. He sat at the washbin. No, he wouldn’t be tricked again. Maybe he should just risk spending the next day researching and hope he’d find a way out before nightfall. The little thought from before came to him again, this time peering its eye through his mind’s doggie door as if to say _you dumbass. It’s so simple._

He felt foolish saying it aloud, but he looked into the murky water, “Castiel?”

A rush of wings and a presence as clear and biting as cold vodka in the room with him, heady with power he hadn’t felt in full for a long time. It made him inhale in shock. The candle he’d lit flared like a steady lamp. He turned around. Cas always appeared behind him. Cas always made him look backwards.

The woman from the first day in the church was standing near the bed, prim and curious. She tilted her head. 

“Dean?”

“Cas?”

He did not need to ask, but it was good to say his name. It was not the man he'd left behind in the 21st century, not Jimmy Novak, not borrowing a man's body, but it was Cas through and through. It was Cas who frowned at him in a strange and borrowed mouth.

“How do you know me? Why did you call me?”

Dean stood up from the wash bin and walked towards him, his hands raised and open, almost laughing, “Listen, I know this is gonna sound weird, but in the future you and I are good friends.”

Cas did not back up the same way a mountain does not back up, but he also looked like he was ten seconds from grabbing Dean by the throat, “Why would we even know each other?”

“Because you pull me out of hell. I’m Michael’s vessel.”

That managed to raise eyebrows at least, “Why would Michael’s vessel be in hell?”

“It’s a long story, I was born in a house in Kansas, blah blah, but the point is I need you to get me back to my time. Kind of a nightmare, but it’s where I’m supposed to be.”

“Why are you here?”

“I don’t know, Cas, but I sure as shit don’t want to be. Please. Don’t you have some kind of way to pull me out of time?”

It was different than when they’d first met. That Cas had been cocky even with Dean stabbing a knife into his chest. This Cas had just as much power brimming around him, but was unsteady. It was the fact that Dean clearly knew him that was putting him on edge. His face, unfamiliar but undeniable, set.

“I do not take orders from humans.”

Dean caught his arm before he could disappear in a rush of wings, “Okay, then why did you save me this morning?”

Cas looked like he was debating throwing Dean through the bedroom window. Dean squeezed his wrist. God, what had he done to win Cas over before? 

“Cas. Please. I really don’t know what’s going on, but I promise I’m not trying to hurt anybody. You’re the only one who can help me.”

“I can feel it.”

“What?”

“My grace on you.”

Cas said it with revulsion and almost winced as his eyes grazed Dean’s shoulder. They both seemed to fight a shiver. 

“I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Cas–”

But he was gone. Dean had been kidding himself trying to hold onto him.

_


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sometimes i feel like human/graceless cas will get into an uncomfortable conversation and then be like 'well fuck this bye' before realizing he can't teleport anymore

In the morning, Dean woke up to Cas standing at the other end of the room, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. It reminded him of the night he’d woken up to Cas leaning against the sink.

“You been watching me sleep?”

Cas tilted his head, unamused. Dean huffed and rubbed at his hair.

“Yeah. Well, at least that’s the same. Hey, don’t watch me change though. Turn around.”

Stiffly, Cas turned and faced the wall. Dean put on his clothes warily.

“Thanks, by the way.”

“For what?”

“For cleaning my clothes. And saving me too, I guess.”

A silence, and then, “You stank.”

“Yeah, but here’s the thing. I’m pretty sure you can’t smell the same way you can’t really taste things. At least not the same way most people can. So why would you care if I stink?”

Cas sighed, and tilted his head up towards the ceiling, “I did not want to leave you in the church smelling like manure. The pastor is a kind man.”

“Sure. He doesn’t know you, though.”

“Most people don’t.”

Dean shrugged on his jacket, and nodded even though Cas couldn’t see him, “So whose body is this? Ms. Crocker? First name isn’t Betty, is it?”

“Betty?” and Cas turned around, the arms unfolding and the skirts swirling around his legs. 

Something about seeing Cas in the simple morning light through the window, not in the strange flare of candlelight from the night before, and the new body and the same eyes made him stumble. It still wasn’t quite who he wanted to see. This Cas didn’t know him at all, was still an angel and a soldier before anything else. It made Dean miss him even more than when he’d been alone.

“Yeah,” he swallowed, “Is she like Jimmy?

“Jimmy?”

“Shit, nevermind. I mean, why did she let you in?”

Cas’s shoulders relaxed, “She is a devout woman. I asked her for her body so I might fulfill work on earth.”

“Rescuing my sorry ass from the cold.”

Sternly, “Finding out why a human was asking for my help specifically.”

Dean thought of something, “Did you tell heaven you came here? Any of your friends?”

Cas didn’t blink, never had when Dean had first known him, but his eyes wavered despite his voice staying calm, “I came here alone. It did not seem like something I needed to trouble anyone else with.”

“You snuck out.”

Cas did not scold him, but simply looked down at the floor as if he were ashamed, “We should go.”

“Hey, hey, wait. You can’t leave this room with me.”

Cas squinted and then glared at him, “I’m not going to wait here.”

“No, I mean– You can’t leave this room with me in this woman’s body. I’m not a historian but I’m pretty sure they’re gonna think pretty badly of Ms. Crocker if she comes out of a tavern room in the morning with the weird guy who showed up three days ago. Just– Go fly off to somewhere private and then meet me at the library. Okay?”

-

Dean was not really sure what he expected to find in a small library in a small town, but none of it was related to time travel. He put his face in his hands.

“Not sure why I thought this would work.”

Cas sat across from him, flipping idly through Mark Twain like it was a picture book, “Neither do I.”

Dean looked up, “What?”

“I never said we should go to the library.”

“Well, I need to find out why I’m here and how to get back. And since the internet isn’t around, it’s here or asking around, wise guy.”

Cas made eye contact calmly with a concerned looking librarian who was watching them, but then looked back at Dean with boredom, “I never said I couldn’t help you. What I’m trying to figure out is if I should.”

“What?”

Cas closed the book and stood up, just as the librarian came over, “We should go outside.”

-

They walked on the path by the fields. Dean hunched and fumed and Cas was content to be silent next to him. Dean gave up.

“Can’t you use your angel mojo to know that I’m not lying? What are you gonna tell your superiors if the Michael sword dies about 100 years early?”

Cas kept walking, staring straight ahead, and then said casually as if Dean had said nothing, “Did I ever tell you that we’d met in the past?”

“What?”

“In your time. That version of me, did I ever imply that we had met before in this time period?”

“No. And to be honest, you lie a lot, but I’m pretty sure on this one. Why, worried that I’m gonna mess up the timeline and Biff’s gonna be president?”

“I don’t know what Biff is. And the timeline is firm. If you’re here then you’ve always been here, and my future self would always have met you in this time period. The only reason I wouldn’t remember it is if–” and then Cas looked down at the dirt path with the same somber expression he’d looked at the wood paneling in Dean’s room. 

“What?”

Cas’s chin tilted neatly back up, “It means that my memories of this time will be erased at some point. Possibly to stop me from acting in a way to prevent actions that have not yet happened.”

“And then _actually_ fucking up the timeline,” Dean stopped, suddenly serious, “Hey, wait. Cas. There’s a woman named Lily Sunder.”

Cas stopped and turned to him without recognition. Dean spoke quietly. He wanted to lean into Cas’s space, to huddle with him like they were on each other’s side. He still felt freezing. 

“Your garrison is going to kill her child at some point. I’m guessing you haven’t done it yet, or even heard of her. You need to stop it from happening. They’re gonna say her child is a nephilim, but Ishim just wants to kill her because she rejected him,” Cas’s eyes widened at the mention of Ishim, “It’s a human child. And one day you’re going to regret it.”

They stood on the cold road. Cas replied quietly, and Dean wanted to collapse in relief at the way his face seemed to soften with sympathy, “I told you. I’m not going to remember any of this. I’m sorry.”

“You won’t remember me. But maybe you’ll remember what I'm telling you.”

Cas shook his head, “No. If that happened, then it will happen. I won’t remember. You can’t change it.”

Dean clenched his fists and closed his eyes, “If none of this matters, can’t you take me back already?”

“I’m sorry, I– There’s something I still need to know.”

“Fine, ask me. I’ll tell you. Lotto numbers, horse races, anything. You won’t remember anyways.”

“It’s not that simple.”

There was a pressure against his forehead like a finger, and then he opened his eyes to see he was in a sunlit room. He walked to the window and saw a small clearing outside; inside was a narrow bed, a table with a bible on it, a rug, some pots and pans by a stove, a washbin, a bucket. Little things here and there. Cas was gone.

-

He waited for someone to show up in the little house and tell him to leave or chase him with a broom or a gun, but nobody ever did. There was a small vegetable plot outside, and a pen for some sheep. He leaned on the fence and held his hand out for them, and they came and inspected him and made a racket when they saw he didn’t have any food.

“Cas took your mom, huh? Well, he can make it so I don’t feel hungry. Maybe he can do the same for you,” he looked around, “Or maybe I could just feed you myself if I knew where she keeps that kind of thing.”

“You have to let them out. They eat grass,” Cas stepped up beside him.

Dean felt more dumb than angry, “Oh. Yeah. Duh.”

Cas let the sheep come smell his hand and bleet at him, “I’ve been afraid to let them out myself. I don’t know if I could bring them all back inside.”

“Can’t you just,” Dean leaned his back against the fence and waved his hand around, “poof them back here?”

Cas looked resigned, “I could, but it might upset them.”

“You could just calm them, can’t you? Or like I said. Just tap the hunger out of them like you did for me. Clean ‘em up while you’re at it, they stink.”

“They’re animals. They’re supposed to stink.”

“Lucky for them,” and instead of rolling his eyes at Dean, Cas just grimaced, “Hey. Not to scare you away again, but how long until you think you can send me back?”

Cas’s eyes flashed at him in warning, “I wasn’t scared.”

“So you just bailed. Good to know, I’m actually used to that from you.”

One of the sheep was trying to bite his hand. He pulled it away and it let him pet it on the head. He looked up to see Cas watching him.

“What exactly is our relationship in the future?”

Dean blinked rapidly and pulled his hand back as the sheep complained, “Oh! Oh, we’re friends. Buddies. Amigos.”

Cas searched his face, “Do we lie to each other very often?”

Dean took a deep breath and didn't know how else to say it, “Yeah. Yeah, we do, unfortunately. To be fair, it’s mostly you, though. I swear. My signature charm is that I’m more of a bastard who yells and holds grudges.”

Cas did not argue.

-

In town, Cas introduced Dean as his brother. Those who knew Dean as Mr. Winchester, and Cas as Ms. Crocker, found this very odd, until Dean explained that he’d been very close with his aunt, so they were _like_ siblings, but actually cousins. And then people found that suspicious still, but apparently did not really care. They also did not know of any strange disappearances.

“Sorry, Ms. Crocker, I think that’s the best alibi we can give you.”

“Should we say we’re married?”

“Uh, no?” Dean turned completely to make sure Cas could see the full extent of his disapproval, “Unless you want to saddle Ms. Crocker with that time she was married to the town tramp for the rest of her life.”

Cas raised his eyebrows innocently, “You’re considered handsome by human standards. Wouldn’t that be a good thing for her?”

Dean just nodded, still wide-eyed with doubt, for just this moment trying not to let his brain connect that this antique woman– with an expression he had seen hundreds of times and knew by heart– was Cas, “Yeah. Yeah. Cousins it is. And hey, let me do the talking. I don’t want you asking about hexes or something and getting her burned as a witch.”

-

The townspeople did not know much. Dean walked by the tavern and shoved his hands in his pockets.

“You don’t have any money, do you?”

“What?”

“I guess it would just be Crocker’s money. Hey, would you be able to magic me up a burger?”

“You want me to use my power to bring you a _burger_?” Cas had skipped straight past disdain and to anger, and Dean chose to remember the time Cas had made him and Sam sandwiches and ignore the time Cas had threatened to throw him back into hell.

“Yeah. I’m hungry.”

Cas reached for his forehead and Dean reared away from it, glancing around to see if anyone noticed, “Hey. Don’t touch me when we’re in public. And yeah, thanks for the magic healing, E.T., but sometimes a guy wants to eat when he’s hungry. Not just stop being hungry.”

Cas at least looked more curious now, and resumed walking when Dean did, “It’s the same outcome.”

“Well, with that logic, everything has the same outcome,” Dean bulged his eyes and pursed his lips in a kind of _you know, the big one, what can you do_ brand of existential dread, “That’s why it’s nice to eat food. And sleep, and shower, and do all the other stuff that feels good. Otherwise you’re just sitting around with your hands folded politely over your junk, content and satisfied and waiting to croak.”

Cas frowned at that, but did not say anything until they were out of town, and back at the little Crocker house. Cas did not follow Dean in but waited at the bottom of the little steps. Dean turned around.

“You coming, dude?”

“What’s sex like?”

Dean blinked and swallowed innocently, “Hm? Huh? Hello?”

“Sex. That’s what you meant by _other stuff_ wasn’t it?”

“It’s uh. It’s good.”

“It’s like eating?”

His mind swerved comfortably into a euphemism, “Well, that depends on if you like eating out– Damn, you won’t get that joke for awhile. Yeah, it’s kind of like eating.”

He turned back to the door and fiddled with the key Cas had given him (walls and doors did not mean anything to Cas) and then dropped it blankly on his feet when Cas said:

“Do we ever have sex?”

He stared at the key on the step between his boots. He bent down and picked it up, and opened the door.

“No, Cas. Of course we don’t.”

-

A storm came in. They ushered the sheep into the little barn, and Dean let himself pause and enjoy the sight of Cas with hands tentatively lifted as the sheep puffed and clouded around his skirt. 

“Why are you asking people questions? You’re drawing attention to yourself.”

“Because a little birdy won’t shotput me back into the 21st century.”

Cas’s shoulders coiled up before he relaxed again, “I am not a bird.”

“And you’re not helpful. So I either have to convince you that you should send me back, which you won’t tell me how to do, or I can solve this on my own,” Dean smiled in the doorway of the house as it started to rain, “Which, I can do.”

He slammed the door. Of course, he turned around and Cas was standing in the corner of the room, examining a painted teacup.

“The reason I’m here is because you kept asking for _my_ help, specifically.”

“So help me.”

Cas gestured to the house without looking up from the cup.

“Yeah, thanks for the real estate, but take it the extra mile and send me home,” he sighed, suddenly exhausted, “Cas, please.”

“I can’t,” and Cas put the cup down and at least looked at him now, “Not yet. I’m sorry, Dean.”

And then he left.

-

He was crossing some kind of desert, not Biblically miserable but full of yuccas and flowers, road runners and jackrabbits, an owl in a cactus, the sky pink and psychedelic as the massive boulders turned blue– and then he was at a campfire. There was a shadow sitting across from him suddenly. Every time he tried to look at it through the fire, it shifted into static, into the night behind it. After enough times, Dean found it strangely playful.

“Feeling shy, Cas?”

Thought that flowed through his head like it was a road, “I don’t know what you mean, Dean.”

“C’mon. Let me see you,” and he found himself saying– just as simply as he had found himself in the desert, suddenly lit up and hungry from the pit of himself– “I want to touch you. I miss you.”

The soundless voice was glowing with wry happiness, “I’ve been here. I’m the campfire. I’m the coyote. And I missed you too. But you’re always here.”

Dean smiled, “How do you figure that one?”

There was the slightest breeze, “This desert is you. And above it is me.” 

Dean looked up at the sky, deeply black except in the soapy, blue smear of the Milky Way and the spilled sugar of stars. He woke up to the sound of rain.

Cas sat on the edge of the small bed, his back to Dean. His hair was down. He shouldn’t have recognized him, in the dark, in the new body, long hair a curtain, turned away, but who else could it be? The house barely rattled in the rain, but there was a leak in the corner where a pot had already been left. A clip of lightning flooded the room for less than a second.

“Cas?”

The thunder rolled, and then Cas said, “I can feel it, you know.”

“Feel what? The rain?”

Cas’s head almost turned into view, but remained hidden from Dean, voice soft, “How you want me but not me. The other me. All the time.”

Dean sat up with his heart racing, “What are you talking about?”

“Your feelings, Dean. They’re hard to ignore. They’re so strong, so tuned in to _me._ I’ve heard prayers before but they haven’t been addressed to me in a long time. And never so…” He didn’t finish, and turned his head back fully towards the window.

“What do you mean you can feel them? What feelings?”

“Desire. Frustration. Worry. Affection. I’ve never had someone feel those things towards me. I imagine it’s what a piece of wire would feel being struck with lightning hundreds of times.”

“And this is something you can just– you can just tell? Like you can read my mind?”

“No. I don’t understand the specifics. It’s not like a deliberate prayer, where you speak directly to me. It’s just the general sensation, and myself wrapped up in it. And yes,” he turned his head enough that Dean could see one eye reflecting light, “As long as my future self had enough grace, he would have felt it too.”

Dean shuddered against the headboard and then sank back into the bed. He thought of pulling the covers over his head. So Cas knew, had always known, had always felt it. He’d been biting back words and feelings and all the while practically shouting the most embarrassingly lewd and chaste shit in Cas’s ear every day. Over and over again, in one way or another, _I need you._

He was mortified. He closed his eyes.

“Maybe I don’t want to go back to my time anymore.”

Cas huffed what might have been a laugh, “If he didn’t like it, he would have told you.”

“But if he _does_ like it, why didn’t he tell me?”

Cas turned on the bed, folding his legs under his dress and pondering the bedspread, “My future self... After spending so much time with you, he may not have enough grace to be sure of what he’s feeling. It could be more… convoluted than what I feel.”

“You mean he thinks it might just be random thoughts and feelings floating through space that he’s picking up on by accident?”

“No. He might simply think they are his own thoughts and feelings.”

Dean laughed roughly at that, “About what?”

“About you.”

The wish to melt into the bed came back stronger than before, but not so miserable. There was an uncomfortably intense anticipation, on the same wavelength as whenever Cas got up in his face and he thought that something might happen, something that hey, he wouldn’t say no to. Something that he would never suggest himself, but if it happened– He was always waiting for it to happen. His face was hot. He put his hands over it. Something lightly touched his shoulder and he recoiled. He pulled his hands away to see Cas reaching out, looking caught.

“I’m sorry. I was trying to comfort you.”

“Why are you here?”

“I already said. Because you wanted me to be here.”

“I want my Cas,” the possessive made him flinch just a little, “Not you.”

Cas turned his head away, eyes averted, and then disappeared.

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i do think that dean would be a southwest desert. and sam is a rainy northwestern forest. and cas is a big night sky in the middle of nowhere. jack is a beach with a basketball court. thank you for attending my TED talk.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i only vaguely understand history/what's going on in supernatural so if something is off just pretend i'm a writer for supernatural and i'm allowed to ignore or forget canon if i want

Dean figured he’d shot the gift horse in the mouth, but Cas appeared nevertheless in the morning, brushed a hand over his shoulder to relieve any hunger, and sat down at the small table. 

“Hey, Cas.”

“Dean.”

Dean sighed, “Hey, about last night. I– You said a lot of stuff that’s kind of too much to hear in the middle of the night.”

A shade of petulance, “I understand that.”

“But I shouldn’t take it out on you. You’re a hell of a lot easier to deal with than when I first met you.”

Tilt, “I am?”

“Yeah, that Cas came right out the gate and into the barn smug as hell and ready to throw me across the room if he felt like it. I stabbed him in the chest and he just thought it was cute.”

“You _what?”_

“We have uh, a very weird start. Is what I’m saying. I think I figured you’d be more like that now, but…”

“But what?”

“You’re different. I guess when I met you you were flying high on being my savior and everything. Thought you could boss me around,” _I also looked softer around the edges and there was an apocalypse looming, but I’ll keep that to myself,_ “But here, you’re mostly just… formal.”

“Am I not formal in the future?”

Dean let a grin crack his face, “You’re, uh, you’re actually pretty fucking rude, Cas. But I like it. We push each other’s buttons. And you end up being… You end up being a really warm person. You end up being one of the most reckless, informal, emotional people I know.”

“A _person_.”

“Yeah.”

“Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“I don’t even know how to tell you all of it. A lot happens, a lot–” Dean bit his lip at the thought of Cas walking into the lake, of Cas in purgatory, Cas bagging corner store groceries, of Cas shaking under a blanket, burning in a bedsheet– “Happens.”

His voice croaked. He felt like his eyes were watering. He looked up and Cas was only watching him with mechanical interest. There was no tenderness in his expression.

“Why were you so interested in Lily Sunder?”

“What?”

“You warned me about her. Why the concern? Of all the things you could warn me about in the future.”

“Because that’s something you’re really going to regret one day. You and I end up getting into fights about a lot of things you do, and you’re one stubborn son of a bitch. You don’t regret a lot. But I know you wish you hadn’t let that happen.”

“Why? It’s one human child.”

Dean fought the urge to yell and instead just exhaled at the walls, at the ceiling, skin itching, “Because, Cas. You’re different in the future. One human child means a lot to you. Her mom means a lot to you. The fact you let it happen means a lot to you.”

“If I believed it was a nephilim, I–” and the eyes flickered for a moment, “I would have to let it happen.”

He thought of Jack. But he didn’t think his Cas would want him to mention Jack. That was too important to risk messing up in some Marty McFly conversation. He could imagine Cas’s hands cupped around the moment in time Jack was born like folded wings, like someone shielding a lit candle, shaking and anxious. Like a father. A _good_ father.

“Yeah, well. Like I said. A lot of things happen.”

-

“Are you going into town?”

Dean was putting on his jacket, his real one, “No. I’m gonna go on a walk. Wanna come?”

The original idea had been to explain to Cas that if his approval was Dean’s best ticket home, then they might as well spend all their time together so Dean could prove whatever he needed to prove sooner than later. But he’d laid in bed that morning, tapping his hands on his chest, and thought, well, yeah, I could say that, and then Cas might do what he always did, which was run off. So he’d have to let Cas think he was just a dumb ape with no plans in his little cosmic-ant head, who wanted some company on a walk.

They walked through the dirt road lined with trees, pillars through which they could see the fields and pastures. They were silent for half a mile, and it almost eased the homesickness in Dean entirely. 

Until Cas said, “Why don’t we ever have sex?”

Dean breathed out, “Wow. Okay. I don’t know. You never ask me.”

“But you want to. I can feel it.”

Again, that mortifying shock of _he knows, my Cas must know, the big blinking light behind my head screaming ‘FUCK ME, DUMBASS.’_ And the wormy essay scattered in his head that he’d thought to himself in many a shower and bed, about how he just figured it wasn’t something angels did. Not just romantic love, but love in general, any kind of big love. Cas had said he loved him and Sam, he loved Jack, but that didn’t mean he understood what it was like when a human loved their mother or their brother or their best friend. Or maybe he did– and it had almost cracked him open like an overcharged lightbulb, and it was safer if he didn’t.

“Like I said. You never say anything about it.”

“I can feel shame mixed in with it. It’s hard to pull apart the two,” Cas winced, “I can imagine that I’d be apprehensive to approach such a thing with you.”

"You don't seem to have trouble approaching it now."

"You don't feel it about me– Or if you do it's just because I remind you of him. And it's distracting. I can't imagine how he gets anything done."

“Hey, it’s not my fault I’m giving out mixed signals. I didn’t even _know_ I was broadcasting my shit until last night.”

“Still. It would be like riding a horse straight towards a fissure in the ground,” and tilting his nose up a little, Cas sniffed, “I can understand why my future self wouldn’t say anything. You seem very easy to upset.”

A slow glare dragged out of Dean, but Cas kept his eyes forward on the road. They kept walking. Dean ran his tongue over his canines as he thought of something.

“Why do _you_ keep asking about it?”

A misstep in Cas’s stride, just a glitch of a movement, but enough that Dean felt obnoxiously triumphant, “I’m trying to understand our relationship in the future.”

“You think I’m handsome. You already said that.”

“By human standards,” and then without stopping, Cas turned blankly to Dean with clear eyes and said, “If I had come to you in this body in the future, would things have been different?”

No misstep on his end; Dean fully tripped, “Sure. Yeah. Probably.”

“You would have had sex with me.”

“Yeah, probably immediately,” this was all tumbling out like boxes out of a closet, “I like bossy women. It probably would have fucked up our whole relationship. But I would have been sweating for it until we did.”

Cas’s eyes slid sharply to his as Dean tried to mentally shoo away an erection passing by and sticking its head into the conversation, “You like bossy everything.”

Licking his lips, aware of his breathing, “Yeah. Sure. You’re not gonna remember any of this anyways.”

“So should we?”

“What?”

“Should we have sex. Now.”

He sounded sixteen again as he choked out, “In the road?”

“No, Dean,” and they were back in the house, Crocker’s little room with the Bible on the end table, “I mean here.”

They were sitting on the edge of the bed, Cas straddling Dean clinically like he was about to run him through a very intimate physical. Dean put his hands on Cas’s waist– and pulled him off his lap, until Cas was sitting next to him. He rubbed his hands over his face. 

“We shouldn’t.”

“But you want to. Even if it’s me, and not him.”

Dean swallowed, refusing to look at him, “Yeah, but do _you_ want to?”

“I want to know what it’s like. It sounds like something my future self would be interested in. And it might quiet all that shame and lust you keep radiating towards me. As long as we don’t have a child together it’s not against the laws of heaven.”

Dean stared through his fingers just a few inches past his erection, a solid paperweight of white noise in his head at _as long as we don’t have a child together,_ “I mean, it’s not gonna work if you’re not into it. And I mean, _into_ it. I guess we could find some lube, but– Fuck. No, we can’t, Cas. This is all fun right now but I’m not going to be able to go through with it if you’re just staring at me like a lab rat the whole time.”

“How should I act?”

Dean finally risked looking at him, and the cool gaze looking back at him did actually release some tension, “You shouldn’t have to act like anything, Cas. I just want you to want it,” in for a penny, “As badly as I do.”

Cas frowned at the wall, as if he’d just been told they weren’t going to pull over for milkshakes after all. He was sulking. Dean actually laughed.

“Also, Ms. Crocker might not be interested. It’s not really fair to her,” he thought with some trepidation about the ethics of Jimmy, and then veered away from it.

“She says she doesn’t mind. You’re a handsome man. I told her God doesn’t care about sex before marriage.”

“You asked her?”

“Yes.”

Dean squinted and tried not to laugh again, “What if I said that if you send me back right now, I promise to put the moves on you in the future.”

“I was assuming you were already planning on doing that.”

Dean raised his eyebrows, “What, just because we had our little sleepover talk?”

“Because what else are you waiting for? Your lives are the span it takes a sparrow to fly in and out of a church,” he sounded genuinely pissed, “Or are you just going to ‘sit politely with your hands over your junk’ forever?”

Oh no, he was getting kind of turned on again, “Maybe you have a point.”

“Of course I do. I’m billions of years old, Dean. And why are you looking at me like that?”

The frustration, the bickering, the use of his name; it was all so familiar that he’d allowed himself to stare at Cas as if it was still their time, as if they’d known each other for years because for a moment it felt like they did. He must have looked dazed. Or just happy.

“Nothing.”

-

Cas excused himself the rest of the day.

“Hey, Cas, if you’re embarrassed about striking out with me–”

“Shut up, Dean. I have my own business to attend to.”

Dean didn’t see him again until he came home from a trip through town, where he had gone wandering for a small job he could do just to earn some money for whiskey and real food. Cas was sitting by the window as the light faded. There was the smell of coffee and bread in the room, and Dean looked and saw a plate and a cup on the table. Cas waved to it without looking away from the window.

“For you.”

Dean sat down and ate the bread, not caring that it was plain. It was fresh. The coffee was hot. He spoke with his mouth full.

“So where were you? A bakery?”

“I got the bread from Madrid,” Cas said casually before turning away from the window, “Otherwise I was investigating some things in the United States.”

“What things?”

“Lily Sunder. She’s alive in this time period. Her daughter has already been born.”

“Oh,” Dean put a hand over his mouth, “So. What’s the scoop?”

If the phrase confused Cas, he didn’t let it show, “I need to investigate Ishim without him realizing it. I have to be careful though, or else he’ll realize what I’m doing and likely try to frame me so I’ll be executed, or at least distrusted. But I need proof he’s going to lie before I bring it up to our superiors. I just don’t know when the right time to do it will be.”

“All this for one human child, Cas?”

“And a mother.”

“And a mother. Right.”

Dean put the coffee down and was struck with such a pang of well-worn love for this Cas, here and now, that they both turned to look at each other, wide-eyed. Of course Cas could feel it. He did not say anything but adjusted his skirt and looked back out the window, eyes still tense. Dean thought he might have seen him swallow.

“We should put up sigils to keep out angels if necessary.”

“What?”

“In the house. If Ishim finds you, you'll need protection.”

“Yeah, but then you might get hurt too.”

“Just don’t activate them while I’m here.”

Dean thought of his hand hovering over a sigil while Ishim taunted him, “Just don’t be here if I need to.”

-

Cas did not leave that night as he had done before, but stayed in the chair near the window. Dean wished Ms. Crocker owned something other than the Bible to read.

“You got a deck of cards, Cas?”

Cas blinked out, and then back in with a little box of playing cards in his hand. He sat down on the floor without a word and began shuffling them, with big swooping bridges and tricks. Dean sat across from him and smiled.

“Trying to impress me?”

The cards abruptly stopped moving, and Cas began dealing them, “You’ll have to forgive me. I only know how to play War.”

“You really were, weren’t you. Cas, you’re an angel. I figure you can handle some card tricks.”

Cas kept dealing, but said lightly, “I thought you might like to know I’m good with my hands.”

Dean raised his eyebrows and looked at his increasing pile before running a hand through his hair, expecting to feel steam on his palm, “Well. Alright then.”

-

He woke up to Cas staring at him balefully from the chair. Morning light came in behind him. Dean pushed up on an elbow.

“Good to know some things never change.”

A question came and went through Cas’s eyes, but otherwise he ignored the statement, “I’m going to be gone again today.”

“You waited for me to wake up to say that?”

“I don’t want you to complain when I get back. Do you need anything?”

“Could I get some more food?”

Cas disappeared, and Dean got changed in the mean time. A flutter of wings as he put on his jacket and Cas was behind him, setting down a loaf of bread, a whole ham, and a bunch of grapes. Dean fixed his sleeve.

“Hey, how are you paying for that stuff anyways?”

Cas looked at him like he was asking how gravity worked, “I’m not paying for this. I’m an angel sent by the lord.”

“So. Stealing?”

Cas kept his nose primly up as he turned away to fuss with the curtain, “I don’t steal. It’s part of God’s plan.”

Dean laughed, not a bark but a warm feeling that made him duck his head as Cas turned to watch him, “Yeah. You would say that.”

Cas actually smiled, and then looked weary to the bone.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“It’s nothing, Dean.”

“C’mon. Keep me happy, keep me from complaining.”

“I just… I wish I knew you like you knew me. It seems unfair.”

“Oh, does it?”

“I’m serious. When you go back, we’ll have already known each other for years. But when you leave, I’ll still be here. And I won’t meet you for decades.”

“But that’s barely any time at all to you, right?”

“It’s feeling less so,” before Dean could say anything, Cas stepped forward, “There’s a sigil under the rug. I carved it into the floor. Stay safe.”

Dean was alone again.

-

Cas was gone for two days. Dean picked at the food. He tried not to pray, because praying meant he was worried. He went into town and tried to amuse himself with gambling, and helping move some heavy stuff around in the tavern storage room for a bit of money. He went back to Ms. Crocker’s house but upon seeing it, turned around to go walking some more. He ended up in the woods, which was where he found himself in the dark as a hand reached for his shoulder, deadly cold and too hard to be anything good.

He was so used to having a gun or a blade on him. He’d kept Ms. Crocker’s biggest knife in his belt and figured he’d be fine, it’s not like anybody in the village was mysteriously disappearing, so what could happen? So he pulled out the knife, turned around, and brandished it at a headless body.

“Jesus Christ–”

He pushed it in the chest and stepped back, not so much scared as confused, until several more came out between the trees. Some still had their lower jaws, but none had anything above that. A faint light was glowing out of their open necks. _Shoot ‘em in the head_ was a no-go.

Something grabbed his arm from behind. They couldn’t bite him at least, right? But the one in front of him swung at him with surprising force. It knocked him back into the arms of the one who’d grabbed him, and he was pulled down as the rest approached. The first one stomped him in the chest with cruel intention to hurt. They were brainless but not mindless.

He tried to wriggle free but he was kicked in the face. His nose cracked. He felt blood in his mouth, maybe the loose stone of a tooth. A hand at his throat with sharp nails.

_Cas, now would be a good time–_

A bright light filled the clearing, making the shadows dark and dense at the edges. A hand grabbed one of the corpses by the shoulder and threw it backwards. Dean gasped on the ground as Cas moved from creature to creature, until each one lay in the dirt without moving. He was pushing himself up just as Cas knelt by him, his hand finding the back of Dean’s neck. When Dean inhaled, his nose was clear of blood, his throat was uncut. There were still twigs in his hair. Cas looked distracted and just barely calm. They were back in the Crocker house. Dean was leaned up against the foot of the bed, on the floor.

“I’m sorry, Dean.”

“Why, for saving my ass?”

“No. It was likely Ishim who sent those things after you. He can’t find you because of the carving already on your ribs–”

“Thank future you for that–”

“But he knows where I’ve generally been. He's correctly guessed I've been speaking with a human. He might have hoped they’d find you for him. He can’t come here to Earth however without raising suspicion.”

“Can _you_?”

Cas looked strange, electric– Dean realized he looked frightened, “Maybe not anymore.”

“Hey, Cas. Cas. Look at me. Whatever you’re trying to do, forget it. Give up. Send me home, keep your head down. Forget the firmness of the timeline or whatever. If you get killed here, we’ll never…” He looked at Cas’s mouth, hardly thinking of sex but thinking of the years and years that had not come to pass. 

“Why were you out in the woods at night anyways?”

Cas sounded furious, which offended Dean enough that he snapped out of his reverie, “Because I can do what I want. You’re not the only one gets to leave the Crocker bunker. Weren’t you just apologizing a minute ago?”

“I wouldn’t have to if you would just stay safe,” and Cas’s hand had found its way to his collar to shake him slightly, “I’m not supposed to die here, but nothing suggests the same for you. You don’t know your own future like you know mine. This could be where your life culminates. In some dirty field hundreds of years before anyone who knows you was even born.”

“Then send me back.”

“I can’t.”

“Why!”

“Because I can't _,_ Dean!”

Dean clenched his hand around Cas’s, “What do you mean, you can't? Future you sent me back in time once.”

Cas looked him in the eye, at least, “I can't do it without the full approval of heaven. Which I might have in the future, but not with regard to you right now. There might be another way but I don't know it. I lied to you.”

Dean pushed the hand off of him and stood up, shaking before becoming dreadfully still, “Okay. Wanna tell me why you lied to me?”

And another trip down memory lane as Cas’s eyes went convincingly miserable, just like when he was working with Crowley, but this time kneeling supplicant and yet still more indignant on the floor, “I had to figure out how you knew me. What you knew.”

“So you thought it’d be fine to drag me around until you got what you wanted? You know. I can’t even say I’m surprised.”

He stood up, “Dean–”

“Let me guess. You had to. I should trust you. It’s for the best. You’re sorry but I should believe in you anyways. Cas,” Dean backed away and grinned viciously at the rug, “This may be your first time saying it all but it isn’t my first time hearing it.”

“I was going to find out how to help you once I knew. I’m sorry, Dean. I’m sorry this isn’t the first time.”

Dean threw his arms out, “Well, what is it? What do you still need to know, Cas? What are you waiting for?”

Cas finally shuttered his eyes closed, and said nothing.

“Great. While you’re figuring that one out, I want to go, more than ever. So you can help me or not. And since you don’t know how to help me, you should leave me alone.”

“Dean–”

“I mean it,” and there he was, cold and angry Dean, mean bastard Dean, I-mean-business Dean, “Leave.”

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cas... inventor of free will, thursdays, and lying like hell


	4. Chapter 4

Cas left, like always. Dean spiked the room both hot and cold with anger as he paced around it. Like always. Of course Cas betrayed him, lied to him, of course the creaking rise of affection and trust, that always plummeted as Cas did whatever he wanted. Of course he wanted Cas to come back, and of course neither of them could back down. Not unless one of them was about to die. Or already dead.

He ripped the rug off the floor and stared at the sigil. Cas couldn’t die. Ms. Crocker had to survive and come back to see what kind of shit happened when you trusted an angel of the lord. Someone still had to pull Dean out of hell one day and then ruin his life.

He snarled into town, and whoever he’d tenuously managed to win over before kept their distance now. Pastor Harken was obligated to welcome him with paternal firmness into his office. No, he hadn’t seen anything strange. No, he didn’t know of any cruel men who’d wandered into town recently who needed the hand of justice. Yes, it would be nice if someone swept up a little. Mr. Winchester, are you alright? What brought you to this town anyways? May I ask, son?

“I don’t know,” he said, honestly.

“We don’t always know our own path. There is only one who does,” and he looked sagaciously upwards as Dean clenched his jaw to keep from laughing or screaming.

He left the church, passed the tavern. He walked back home– to someone’s home at least. He could see the white house in the distance, crouched timidly in the shelter of oaks around it, when he saw a familiar figure standing in the worn path through the grass leading up to it– not Cas but a lean man in a waistcoat, his back to Dean, looking down at something. Dean could see the green folds of a skirt behind the man. It was dusk. He started running.

He rammed Ishim in the back, which felt like hitting a brick wall. He figured it was only surprise that actually caused Ishim to turn around, and he managed to get a glimpse of Cas kneeling on the ground. A cut in his forehead, blood running over his brow and to the corner of his eye, in the line where his nose met his cheek. Blood on his chin like a beard. His eyes were unfocused. His hair was loose. Then Ishim was holding Dean by the throat, smiling wickedly.

“Good timing. Here’s your little pet.”

Dean felt something crack, and it was harder to breathe. It was maybe only thanks to Ishim hating humans more than reason that Cas had the opening to stumble up and stab Ishim in the back. Dean fell to the ground and closed his eyes against the final burst of light from Ishim’s face. 

Something crawled to in the dirt alongside him and put a hand on his chest. He opened his eyes. Cas was lying, stomach down, on the ground next to him. There was a gash across the back of the dress. Dean felt particularly incensed above all else by a bootprint on Cas’s left shoulder. He sat up, neck healed, and rolled Cas over.

“Hey. Hey, Cas. What the fuck is wrong with you? You can’t heal me and then die. You got nothing left in the tank now. Put your own oxygen mask on before helping others, don’t you fucking know anything?”

Cas might have been smiling at him before his eyes rolled, and then Dean was lifting him up, and bridal carrying him into the house. He left Ishim’s vessel’s body in the path, wings burnt across the ground and reaching into the branches of a bystanding oak. He set Cas on the bed, stomach down so he could look at the wound on his back. Sorry for the dirt on your sheets, Ms. Crocker. He knelt and hissed at him.

“Cas. Man, come on. I don’t know how to heal an angel. If I wrap this up will it do anything?” He had already started fumbling with the bedsheet and the knife to cut it into bandages, dropping the knife with fumbling fingers and growling in frustration.

Cas murmured something wordless as his eyes rolled back into his head.

“Cas!”

Dean patted at his back with a rag dipped in the pitcher of drinking water. He pulled at the dress as best he could before just ripping it open along the gash and peeling it down to the waist. He was hoping for a goddamn corset to have taken most of the cut, but there was only a ripped slip he assumed was some kind of old-timey bra. He pushed it out of the way and wrapped the wound. He cleaned up Cas’s face, cheek lifted up in one hand and the other dabbing as he muttered to himself alone.

“Come on, Cas. Come on. I still need you.”

The imprint of wings, like the grim tolling of funeral bells, hadn’t appeared yet. Cas was still alive. Dean kept looking for the flat mark of them across the room, gasping aloud when he mistook the shadow of a table for them. He realized it was dark. Night had fallen. 

He didn’t know if it was safe to pray. The only person he’d ever believed in enough to pray to was unconscious in front of him. He pressed his forehead to his fists and thought of nothing at all. 

-

He woke up on the floor. He pulled himself up to the bed so quickly that he wrenched his neck. Cas was still lying there, but at some point had turned on his side. His eyes were open. His face looked less hollow. He didn’t say anything as Dean melted in relief and smiled at him.

“Reckless asshole.”

“Thank you, Dean.”

“We’re even now. Next time don’t heal me until you’re no longer on the verge of death, dumbass.”

Cas’s voice was painfully quiet, “If I had waited, you would have suffocated. Your face was blue. It was my fault you were hurt.”

“Yeah, well, who knows, remember? Maybe I’m supposed to die here. But you’re not.”

Cas just shook his head stiffly against the mattress, eyes stubbornly lucid.

“Don’t argue with your doctor.”

“Fuck off, Dean.”

Dean’s smile went wide and watery, and laughed, hiding his face against his arms folded over the bed. He felt Cas watching him.

-

Dean puttered around the house in the morning. Now that Cas was safe (unless a horde of angels was gonna come looking for Ishim), he was starting to worry more than absently that someone would stumble on all those beheaded bodies in the woods and suspect the new stranger in town who’d been asking weirdly aggressive questions might have something to do with it. He’d buried the vessel of Ishim behind the house, and stared at the turned dirt with exhausting pity before finding a large stone to mark it with. Some poor bastard who’d made a deal with an angel. He peered out the window occasionally for an angry mob. He would glance at Cas, who seemed to be resting if not sleeping.

He was hungry, but did not want to leave to get food or even mention it to Cas in this state. He reread the faded Bible boredly. He ventured outside to check on the sheep, who he’d managed to shepherd grumpily the last two days, sometimes by just picking them up or shoving them awkwardly towards the enclosure and cursing them. He found some hay and threw it into the pen with a shrug. He picked up a branch and hacked it into something short and brought it back into the house, trying to carve a bird and then a ball and then just aimlessly nicking at it.

A whistling breeze of a voice, “You’re getting wood chips on the floor.”

“I know how to sweep, Cas.”

Hoarse, but louder than before, “I hope better than you can whittle.”

Dean dropped the piece of wood and brought the chair closer to the bedside, “How you feeling?”

“I’m sorry. For dragging you into this.”

“I’m the one who told you about Lily,” without thinking, he reached a hand and put it on Cas’s forehead, where of course there was no fever, “Answer the question.”

“I’m sorry I lied to you. I should have found a way to get you home before investigating Ishim and risking your life. I didn’t want you to leave.”

“It’s fine now, Cas. I forgive you. How do you feel.”

“I just needed to rest. The physical wound is healed over. I’m still weak.”

“What can I do?”

“Can you–” Cas’s eyes darted with sudden fear over the room, “Come closer. I want to ask you what I’ve been too afraid to ask you.”

Dean leaned in, and Cas looked pained, “No, I mean– Can you get in the bed with me?”

Dean leaned back, “Cas, that’s not–”

“Not sex. I just want… I want you close. Not pacing around the damn house all night.”

Dean bit back a reply and took off his boots. He lifted the bedsheet carefully, which Cas had slipped under at some point in the day, after putting on a new shift. It was a small bed. He hovered his way slowly into it, and Cas rolled his eyes. He finally settled into it, almost straining to keep from falling off the edge he was balanced on, before Cas sighed.

“Come here, Dean.”

Dean moved closer, and immediately Cas put an arm over Dean’s torso, their foreheads inches apart. Dean watched as Cas closed his eyes and relaxed into the pillow.

“What did you want to ask, Cas?”

“Get up and blow out the lamp. I don’t want the house to burn down because you fell asleep.”

“Are you kidding me?” he’d gone from awestruck to seething, “I just got in here!”

“And was it so hard?”

Dean grumbled, peeled away from Cas who made no move to remove his hand from Dean’s waist himself, and put out the lamp. He slid back into bed with more force.

“There.”

“Thank you. It’s very hard for me to ask what I want to ask.”

“What is it? Something about me?”

“No, not everything’s about you, Dean. Or maybe it is.”

“Cas, I promise, you and I already know each other pretty well. You can say anything to me.”

Cas’s eyes remained closed. His jaw had tightened. His eyes were clenched shut. Dean reached out and brushed Cas’s hair back from his face with the tips of his fingers, hand shaking. Cas either felt this light touch, or he didn’t.

“I don’t even want to say it out loud. I don’t even want to say it to an empty room, Dean. And I don’t know if even future me wants you to know this. I could be betraying my own trust. I might forget everything in the last few days, but there’s no guarantee you will.”

Dean had forgotten the assumption that Cas would forget everything, and refused to think about it while pleading, “Say it to me. Please. I already know you have doubts. I know you question things. I know it scares you, and that this is all before you even meet me. You tell me in the future. But it’s good that you do. You have to trust me, man. You need to have doubts and questions.”

Cas curled in his arms, his knee resting on Dean’s thigh, his chin and eyes tilted down.

“What are you afraid of, Cas? You’re not going to get in trouble. I promise.”

“I’ve never lain like this with someone. Even weakened as I am now, I could destroy this whole house and you with it,” Cas’s head pressed into his shoulder, “Yet this means something to me.”

“Cas. It’s okay. Just ask me.”

“Am I broken? In the future?”

“What?”

Cas opened his eyes and looked up, not teary or weepy but ashen-faced and haunted, “I always thought maybe there was something wrong with me. Is there? Do I ever find out? Do I ever fix it?”

Dean hands hovered between their chests, trembling with the clumsy need to comfort and soothe, “You question things. You see the world differently than other angels. There’s one other angel named Anna, who cares about humanity–”

“Anna does?”

“Yeah. And you end up seeing things the same way she does. You choose to do things because you care about people. Not because someone told you to or told you it’s all part of some greater plan. Not even because I yell at you to, eventually. And the only reason you listen to me anyways is because you already know it’s what’s right. Because you always wanted to do the right thing but needed someone to tell you–” Dean’s voice broke, “–that it doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you, Cas. That broken feeling is the best part of you. I’m sorry. If it hurts.”

Cas laid back against the pillow, looking drained instead of comforted, “I was so worried when you started calling for me. I thought that it was related to– that it had something to do with the part of me that feels _wrong._ I wanted to come here and figure it out without anyone knowing, in case it was. I thought maybe I would finally know for certain. But I’ve never felt less sure of myself. I feel more lost than ever.”

“Yeah. That’s kind of part of the deal. I’m a great lay but I ruin everything I touch. The Dean Winchester tagline.”

Cas squinted curiously, “We didn’t have sex.”

“Yeah, but I still ruined your life. You must have pretty bad luck.”

Cas barely smiled, as if Dean had just said something very wise and charming. He set his head back in the crook of Dean’s neck.

“I wanted to understand why I would befriend you in the future. If it was part of feeling broken. Having any kind of relationship with a human– I’d have to turn against heaven, my orders, my family. I couldn’t imagine a way it wouldn’t, essentially, destroy my life,” Cas patted Dean’s chest, as if this was all just normal conversation.

Dean wanted to say, _It doesn’t._ But that would be a lie.

Instead, “It destroys this life. But I think– I don’t think you regret it.”

Cas closed his eyes, “I can’t understand that. Not yet. But I’ll trust you.”

Dean finally reached his arms out, one above Cas’s head on the pillow and one wrapping around to rest lightly behind Cas’s back without touching it, “You were right. I’m gonna fall asleep like this.”

Cas didn’t respond. Despite what he’d said, Dean watched him for what felt like an hour before drifting off. 

-

Cas was gone in the morning, and back with breakfast. He sat at the table with Dean as he drank coffee and ate a croissant with chocolate in it ( _from Paris_ Cas has said dully, and Dean had thought _God, he really is in love with me_ as a joke before almost choking on it). When Dean finished, Cas stood up and smoothed down his skirt.

“I have to go.”

“Alright.”

Dean let the sheep out and sat on the fence. He put them back, and went into town and finally just bought a goddamn book. He read it the way one does office work or drives an old commute, word by word or mile by mile without really feeling the time pass, doing it simply because it must be done. He got clean water, and made an effort to clean the bloody rags deposited by the bed. He realized it was hot, and he didn’t have to do anything else. He walked the road and picked a few flowers idly, before cursing and throwing them. He walked twenty feet, then walked back and picked them up. He left them in the coffee cup with some water and checked to make sure they perked back up from humid walk home. He washed the dust and sweat off himself.

He woke up to Cas kneeling at his bedside and looking wild. Dean reached out, suddenly shot with adrenaline, and realized there were no visible injuries. Cas leaned into his hand anyways when it landed on his shoulder.

“Dean, I–”

“Cas, whoa, what’s going on–”

“I made my case before the other angels. I told them about Ishim. I explained– his affair, his plan to say to that Lily Sunder’s daughter is a nephilim, her rejection of him, her fear of him. Akobel’s confirmed it, although at his own risk as he’s now under investigation– I don’t know if they believe me, but–”

“Whoa, whoa, are they coming here? Are you in danger, hold on,” Dean sat up and Cas moved up to the bed, sitting by Dean’s knees, still leaning into Dean’s hand. 

“No, no, Dean, it’s fine for now, but I think they’re suspicious. I didn’t tell them about you. I claimed I only had my own suspicions of Ishim, and was investigating him. But I can tell they don’t like that I acted without telling them, and I think they’re planning on– On fixing me. Angels don’t just go out and kill other angels. We only have a little time left–”

“Cas, slow down, it’s okay–”

“I want it, Dean. I want you. I found out how to send you back, on my own and without heaven. I think I figured out what brought you here. I’ll do the ritual first thing in the morning. But right now, even if I don’t remember it, I want to be with you. If they’re going to try and fix me anyways,” and Cas’s eyes took on a silvery, merciless determination, “I might as well break myself entirely.”

“Cas. Hey, I–” Dean was caught by this glance, and was stunned to find he did not feel like a lab rat; he felt, he must have imagined, what a piece of wire might feel like after being struck with lightning, “Okay. Come here.”

Cas fell over him. Lips on his, hand desperate on his neck, his cheek, his shoulder, his chest, his jaw. Holding him in place and yet frantic. A break in touch, and the sound of fabric as Cas pulled the dress over his head and it landed on the floor, and then the slip underneath it followed. He murmured without thinking as Cas undressed him.

“It’s okay, Cas. I’m here. I’m here. Relax. We’ll figure this out in the morning. I’ll be here. I’ll help you. We always figure it out. Cas. Cas. _Cas_.”

Dean had imagined this before, in detail and variations worn into grooves in his mind. Reality differed; there was no moonlit body– the curtains had drawn themselves automatically with a rush of metal rings. There was not even a body he could see, and what he touched and was touched by might as well have been the dark night of the room itself focusing around him. Dean felt among this abyss the smooth expanse of back broken by raised scar tissue where a wound had been. He swore he could feel the heat hidden and safe in the center of Cas’s body as naturally as he could feel the life in his own.

“I’ve got you, Cas. I’m here.”

And Cas never said anything back except Dean’s name. 

-

He woke up in his bed in the bunker, alone, above the covers and wearing his boots. He closed his eyes. At least Cas had put him back in his clothes before sending him off. He’d hate to leave behind a good pair of jeans in the river of time, or on a one night stand’s floor. The whistling rise of love and devotion and passion; the disappointing morning-after descent of Cas doing whatever Cas had planned to do all along without telling him.

There was something stiff in his breast pocket. He pulled a folded paper out. 

_I finally figured out what brought you back in time. I did. I wanted so badly to understand myself. Subconsciously, I wanted someone, someone who really knew me, to come and tell me why I’ve always felt different. And nobody really knows me until I meet you, years from now, so it could only be you. I didn’t know it, but I think I was praying for you to come to me._

_I’m sorry for the inconvenience. I don’t regret it. We’ll meet again._

It was written on a worn piece of paper, torn on one side. He turned it over. There was type on it– it was the publication page from a bible. 

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> old timey cas speedrunning his sexuality crisis bc there's no apocalypse currently happening: peace and love to future me but I'M gonna just ask for what i want at the tenth hour instead of the eleventh so i have enough time to actually get it


	5. Chapter 5

His phone was on the bedside table where he’d left it. It was the morning after the night he’d last remembered being in the bunker. No frantic text messages or missed calls (though they wouldn’t have mattered much if he had left his phone behind), but a good sign anyways. It was past when he’d usually wake up, but not so late that they might not just think he was sleeping in. It was almost like it had never happened. He almost wished he really had been gone for awhile, just a little bit, just so it seemed more real.

He thumbed the torn page still in his hand. He put it on the end table, kicked off his shoes, ignored the sound of the paper falling on the floor, and fell back asleep.

-

When he finally emerged, nobody came running down the hallway to slam him into a worried hug. Nobody had noticed. Sam and Jack were in the library, taking over an entire table together, but it seemed more like a home-schooling lesson that had gotten out of hand than research. Dean walked over with a mug of coffee, and Sam had nodded and Jack had given him a beaming _good morning!_ He left them to it. Where was Cas?

Midway and aimless to the garage it occurred to him that maybe he _had_ fucked up the timeline, that there was no Cas here, they had never met again after that one time, and wouldn’t that make sense? Why would they send Cas to come pick up the same Michael-sword from hell that he’d killed another angel with and then screwed all night like some kind of PSA of angels who went off on a spring break binge of everything they shouldn’t do? Dean turned around so fast in the hall to run back to Sam that he spilled most of his coffee in a long slash along the floor, and Cas was already standing in the hallway staring at him. He looked concerned.

“Dean? Are you alright?”

“Yeah, yeah. Just. Got a, uh, a chill,” he shivered with exaggeration, to drive home the point that he was not well. 

“Okay,” Cas at least no longer looked like he was going to bolt across the hall and put his arm in a vice grip of worry, but that only meant he now looked at Dean with well-earned suspicion, “Keep us posted.”

Dean nodded, lips creased into a bad smile, “Will do.”

-

At dinner, Sam and Jack were normal. He kept catching Cas staring at him with a line in his brow, and instead of looking away, Cas just looked at him harder until Dean chickened out and went back to his plate or watching Sam and Jack talk. He’d tell them all about _Back to the Future 4_ tomorrow, at least the PG parts. _What else are you waiting for?_ He had no idea. Maybe for another few years to idle by.

Cas knocked on his door that night– it was Cas’s usual two knocks, short but clear, the pause between the first and the second almost too long as if he was reconsidering. Dean shrugged at himself. He’d had his mind wiped, right? He set his book down on the end table, open and face down to keep his page.

“Yeah, come in.”

Cas stepped in. Dean barely stopped himself from clearing his throat. 

“Hi, Dean.”

“Hey, Cas. What’s up?”

Cas paused, more self-conscious than he’d been at dinner, “Can I ask you about something?”

Red alarms, people screaming, buildings on fire– Dean blinked away the images and said, very normally, “Yeah. Of course.”

Cas did not come any closer, “You were gone last night.”

“Gone?”

“Just for a few seconds. But I felt– I _didn’t_ feel you. I usually do. I mean, your presence. I can sense Jack and Sam the same way. It’s faint, but–” he shook himself, “It’s like you popped in and out of existence. What happened? Are you really feeling alright?”

Dean exhaled in relief, and patted the bed for Cas to sit next to him, “I’m fine. I was gonna tell you all tomorrow, but just the typical weird shit.”

He explained all of it– just not the part where Cas had bared his soul while practically cuddling in bed, or the very last night. He imagined that Cas livid and pinning him to a wall, clawing holes into his shirt from how hard he’d shake him, _STOP WASTING TIME_ in that piercing voice that could break windows. He knew Cas deserved to know. The truth was he didn't know how to tell him without embarrassing them both.

“After the thing with Ishim, you sent me back. Hell, you probably don’t even know who Lily Sunder is now, do you?”

Cas’s face was achingly sad. Dean had thought it might just be general worry that he'd been hurt somehow, or expecting a bad ending. But Dean had finished and Cas still looked the way he did when Dean had asked him to lock him in a box and drop him into the sea. 

“What?”

“Dean. I’m sorry. Lily Sunder’s child was still killed. So was Akobel. I didn’t realize Ishim played a part, but,” Cas breathed and looked away, and then back with guilt, “I did have my memory wiped. I don’t remember killing Ishim. But I remember being called to Akobel’s execution. He was suspected of growing too close to Sunder, and there were accusations that he was planning on having a nephilim with her, on purpose to use it as– as a weapon. The child saw us. We didn’t realize there was one in the house. They didn’t survive seeing his true form before he died. Lily still came to get revenge.”

Dean felt ragged. Nothing had really changed. Someone’s kid had still died, Sunder had still chipped off pieces of her soul, Cas looked like he wanted to be dragged over the fire. Cas grimaced at the wall, eyes going hard, not noticing Dean’s hand hovering over his shoulder.

“No, it wasn’t that we didn’t realize. We just didn’t think to check. We didn’t care,” and then misery crumpled back over him like someone had cracked an egg over his head, and Dean’s hand skipped the shoulder entirely and braced itself against Cas’s neck. Cas didn’t cry, which was almost a shame because it would give Dean an excuse to rub his thumb over his cheek, some easy way to soothe him.

“Hey, hey. Self-loathing’s my thing. Cut it out.”

“I’m sorry. I just… Why couldn’t it change? The timeline has changed before,” he breathed out, calming down but leaning into Dean’s hand, “I’m sorry. You tried. I failed her again.”

“No, Cas, come on. You're the one who tried. You almost got yourself killed a century ago trying to stop it from happening. It’s not your fault that they mind-wiped you and did it again,” he winced, but had to ask, “Where’s Lily now?”

Cas had gone tense under Dean’s hand, “I talked to her. I apologized to her. I don’t know where she went. I’m sorry for getting upset. I haven’t talked about it since then.”

At least Cas was still Cas in this timeline, apologetic and earnest to the point of breaking his own heart in half. Dean felt himself leaning forward and forward, and then stopped as he realized Cas was staring at him, leaning away.

“Dean. Are you sure you’re alright?”

What a fucking nightmare. Dean pulled his hand back and nodded, then shook his head, then nodded again.

“Yeah. I’m fine. Just sorry to hear that.”

Cas leaned into Dean’s view of the floor to stare at him again.

Dean snapped, “What!”

Cas’s eyes only narrowed, “You are different. I can tell.”

“It was just a few days, Cas. What, I still got quantum particles on me?”

Cas stood up, and Dean’s irritation turned childishly needy at the implication he was leaving already.

“Okay. Goodnight, Dean.”

“Goodnight, Cas,” the audience in his head booed as he gave up, because this was the part where Billy Crystal was supposed to start running for the New Year’s Party, or Dustin Hoffman had to pound on the church window, or somebody had to race through the airport; or else it wasn’t much of a romance.

Cas hadn’t even turned fully around when he paused. His eyes were fixed on the end table.

“What are you–”

No, they were fixed on the piece of torn paper still left on the floor. Cas bent slowly down to pick it up. 

Dean agonized his memory for anything incriminating in the letter, even as he said, “Oh yeah, you wrote that. Left it for me when you sent me back.”

Cas examined the paper on the publication side, before flipping it over and actually reading it. He did not shrug or pocket it or put it back on the table. He finally turned his head and looked at Dean as if he’d been hiding a treasure map or the Dead Sea Scrolls. Dean’s heart was trying every door and locked window in an effort to get out.

“What did you and I talk about?” said with no room for lying.

Dean considered trying it anyway, and then clenched his eyes shut for a second before just saying it, “You wanted to know why I already knew you. Why we were friends,” his voice was getting thick, “If there was anything wrong with you.”

Cas sat back on the bed without looking away from him, turned so his knee was against Dean’s thigh, craning his head close in something rawer than fascination, “What did you say?”

“There’s nothing broken about you, Cas. There never has been. That’s what I said.”

He wished he could see the big neon sign behind him, wished he could turn around and check it to see just to know for himself what was going on in his chest right now. Hell, who knew what Cas was feeling from him. Probably the equivalent of seeing a garbage disposal back up into the sink. A hand on his cheek made him realize that his vision had gone unfocused, and he blinked and realized he and Cas were a few inches apart. Cas never touched him like this except to heal him once after almost beating him to death. Dean tried not to pull away in fear like he had then. Cas looked terrified.

“Thank you, Dean.”

The neon sign shoved him. He was kissing Cas on cruise-control before he realized he was doing it, and then he was lion-taming the urge to run out of the room and into the night while wondering if a human head could overheat enough that it went _Scanners_ in real life. Of all people, it could probably happen to him, go figure. And then standing behind the oblivious lion tamer and its petty problems was the looming giant of triumphant, fist-pumping, banner-waving, audience-standing-and-yelling-as- _Auld-Lang-Syne_ -droned-on joy, as Cas angled his head and pushed in, mouth open, pulling Dean closer with the hand still on his face. There was a hand fisted in his shirt, the letter crumpled into it, that had to be Cas’s hand. If someone parachuted through the ceiling or stepped out of a hole between dimensions or poured a bucket of water over Dean’s head right now, he would have to assume it was Cas. Nobody else could possibly be in this room but the two of them. There was the warning moan of the electricity humming off and on, the room swimming in and out of darkness.

With a neck-jarring speed, Cas shoved him back by the shoulder. He felt dizzy, dazed, sick; it was like being grabbed by the collar while walking drunk and knowing he had done something wrong because otherwise why was he getting caught? Cas was glaring at him.

“I remember.”

“Yeah?” It was the best sentence he could offer.

“Dean, I remember.”

“Dude, remember _what_?” his voice croaked.

“You, Ishim, that night, the flowers in the cup, the night we–” and Cas inhaled sharply, and then shook Dean by the shoulder, “I can’t believe you.”

“What?”

“You slept with past-me?”

“Cas, it’s not like I cheated on you–” Cas’s glare deepened and Dean felt light-headed, “Wait, is that it? That’s what you’re mad about?” He was grinning with his mouth open in shock, still borderline hysteric from the switch between euphoria and fear, “It was you! You knew you were going to forget! You seduced me!”

Cas rolled his eyes to the wall, and Dean could sense that he was more embarrassed than self-righteous now. The glare was now more of a sulk.

“Well, maybe you should have opened with that.”

“Okay, sure, let me try that. ‘Cas, I went back in time and slept with you in some little churchmouse shack in who-knows-when,’” Dean scratched his voice and squinted his eyes, “‘Dean, I don’t remember that. What are you talking about?’ ‘Well, Cas, it’s a long story but basically I rocked your world before you ever even _thought_ about waltzing into that barn–’”

Cas turned away from the wall and kissed him, gently and with the hand from before now flat against his wrinkled shirt, until Dean melted into it. Cas pulled away again, this time blinking slowly when he murmured in relief.

“Oh, good. That actually got you to stop.”

Dean tongued his own incisor and stared at Cas’s mouth instead of coming up with a petulant response, “I was gonna tell you. Eventually. I got distracted.”

Cas ignored the lie and sighed at the ceiling, “I know it’s not cheating. But I… It was our first time. And I know it _was_ me, I know this is irrational, but it was so long ago. To you it was just last night but to me that just feels like… Like it happened to someone else.”

Dean almost said _Trust me, it was you_ and then frowned. There had been a difference, of course there had been, or he wouldn’t have said _my Cas_. The space between that Cas and this one in that last night, in that moment where Cas had essentially asked Dean to break him, had run narrow so quickly that for a moment it had almost felt like there was no space at all. But sitting next to Cas now– of course there was. They had worn into each other, grown the last few years around each other more than anyone else, even Sam who would deep down always want his independence, certainly more than dad or Mary who had their own haunted lives to make away from him. Cas wanted nothing more than to be tied up with him, in a way nobody else ever had. He smiled to the floor at the idea of this Cas meeting a younger Dean driving to Stanford, wired off anxiety and alone. He sighed.

“I think I was worried if I didn’t say yes then, that I might come back here and never… We would never…” Dean made an underwhelming gesture between the two of them, “I thought it might be our only shot.”

Cas looked fondly unimpressed, “At sleeping together?”

“At saying anything. About this.”

They sat and stared at their hands in their laps. 

“We did take awhile, didn’t we.”

“Hey, I won’t blame it on you if you don’t blame it on me.”

Cas glared at him in bewilderment, tone reeling like a cobra, “Why would you blame it on me?”

“I mean, you could have said something any time, man!”

“I would have if I couldn’t _literally_ and constantly feel how uncomfortable you felt about your own desire, Dean!”

Dean felt a bubbling urge to laugh, overwhelmed by everything, and fought it down and tried to focus, tried to do this one thing right without it skidding off the road in his grip, “Okay. Wait. How does it feel now?”

"Well, earlier, with the letter–"

"No, I mean, right now."

Cas’s irritation blinked away, and then he tilted his head. He did not reach out for Dean or say anything. His mouth fell open slightly. His hands curled up slightly on his thighs, and one might have lifted up before setting itself back down. Dean felt his own chest rising and falling, his face burning, the wobbling plate-spinning effort of trying to let himself feel only what he felt for Cas without everything else getting twisted up in it, hard and clear enough that even as weakened as he was, Cas would still see it plainly like light through a crack in the wall. 

Dean exhaled, as if from a Herculean effort, and then ducked his head down like a teenager, “I uh. You know. If you felt like that happened to someone else, it wasn’t really our first time, was it?”

He risked glancing sideways, and Cas was watching him as intently as if they were back on a motel bed back in the old days, “... I guess.”

“So. What do you say?”

The nostalgic alien quality to Cas’s face broke; he smiled wry and easy. He turned away, maybe bashful. Dean touched their shoulders together and it made Cas’s smile turn sweet, but he still looked at his hands.

“I don’t know what you mean, Dean.”

“C’mon, sure you do.”

“Maybe. But I–” the flirting tone faltered into sincerity, “I don’t know how to say it.”

The problem was Dean didn’t either. Or he did, because it was something everyone knew how to say, but he couldn’t manage to actually get the words out. The instinct to flirt over it, _what if I show you, let me spell it out for you,_ etc, felt disingenuous. It would feel cheapened, and like it was just done to avoid doing things the hard way. 

Cas let out a sigh that turned into an irritated groan. Dean rubbed his hands over his face.

“What is wrong with us. We _know._ Right? We already know. It’s just–”

“No, I know what you mean. I’m sorry if I sound angry, it’s not at you. I’m frustrated with myself. Dean, I want you–” it fell out of his mouth and they both raised their eyebrows at how easy it was, “I’ve _wanted_ you for years.”

“As in... Carnally?” Dean tried to sound aloof.

“Carnally, yes. At this point, sometimes I try to come up with new things I want to do to you just to see if I still can.”

“Oh,” Dean schooled his expression to be as blunt as Cas’s tone, but his own voice came out high and cracked, “Just checking.”

“But that’s not what I’m trying to say now. Or it’s not half of it.”

Dean swallowed, “Maybe... We don’t do the carnal stuff right now.”

The truth was he felt too stressed to even start. His head felt full of air and static shock and not in a blissed out, horny way; he just felt like he was trying to climb past a brick wall. Any small heat left over from the kiss, combined with the night’s weird mix of guilt and adrenaline, had gone straight past arousal to shorting him out completely. It was like trying to force open a lockbox that he was so close to just clicking open. He was stunned when Cas got up from the bed and headed for the door.

“I understand, I’ll let you sleep–”

“Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on–” Dean leaned forward and was just able to reach the sleeve of Cas’s coat, “Where you going?”

“To bed.”

“Cas. Hey. Look at me,” he waited for Cas to turn sheepishly, “Just sleep here.”

Cas looked warily at the bed as if it was rigged to explode, “You’d be alright with that?”

“Yes. I–” and though he meant to say it so bluntly as a joke, even that was almost too hard and his voice dropped a beat, “I want you to sleep in my bed with me.”

A pause, and then, “Okay.”

Cas didn’t start undressing until Dean had taken his boots and shirt off. And then Dean waited, without one shit-eating grin, as Cas stared at him the entire time he took off his own jacket and unbuttoned his shirt. It felt like a giant drum in the back of his skull would pound every time he started to think _maybe I can get it up, what could it hurt_ , and a shrill choir of voices would needle him. _There’s still one thing you have to do, one little thing you have to say. Dean Winchester, can’t you just be honest? You don’t have any trouble lying to get what you want. Just this once, just say the truth. Don’t kid yourself, if you don’t say it before sex you’ll never say it after. What’s wrong with you?_

His tongue was thick in his mouth and he shivered when Cas put a hand on his shoulder. At some point he had stripped down to boxers but his socks were still on. He looked nervous, and was standing so far back from the bed that he was bent in half to reach Dean.

“Are you okay? Do you want me to go?”

Dean startled, “No! No. Sorry. Phased out there for a second. I. Keep your socks on.”

Cas could have asked, with all rights, _why?_ And Dean would have had to say _because I think it will distract me from the half of me that wishes that even if it feels wrong right now we were just fucking anyways._ But instead Cas just nodded, wide-eyed with care, and laid on one side of the bed gingerly. Dean shuffled out of his jeans before he could overthink it and scooted back to the headboard. At least the room was cold. He rolled his eyes at Cas, who politely had his back to him and was practically gripping the bed to keep from falling off the edge of it. Dean reached for him, and the second his hand fell on Cas’s arm and felt the heat of it, he just felt hit with the strongest desire to sleep. And then, instantly and without further encouragement, Cas had rolled up against him and wrapped him in every limb he could. Dean pulled the covers over both of them. It was the pleasant, boneless kind of exhaustion; the kind after eating a big meal, drinking just enough to toe the line, or even better, from the sunlight on Bobby’s couch or hearing Sam rambling happily away in another room to someone. He felt deeply, deeply tired. And he felt safe enough to just feel it and give in.

He had barely brushed his mouth over Cas’s forehead with a half-assed, “Goodnight,” before he was dead asleep.

-

He dreamt about the roar of jet engines inside his skull, of being an ant in the grinding gears of some instrument that reached below and above him in infinite height and sunk vertigo into him like teeth, of light that he could feel shoot through him like he was a sheet of tissue paper, of curtains made of feathers and so heavy with the weight of planets that as soon as they finished drawing shut they would crush him. It was all painless. Eventually the dream was just him standing in a dark room, almost like his bedroom but every time he glanced at where a wall would be it seemed like the room just stretched out in every direction, into other rooms, that he caught glimpses of until it felt like he was standing in a house he only half-saw and somehow recognized. There was a lamp on. Cas was sitting in a chair. He was wearing old-fashioned clothing, including a goofy tophat. He was reading.

“Dean? Are you still here?”

Dean walked over to him, and in the dream he fell onto Cas and they fell through the armchair together and through the floor. It was clumsy, and they both smiled and floated in space like there was no rush.

In the morning he woke up and Cas was no longer pressed against him but snoring into the pillow he'd claimed on the other side of the bed. His leg was still thrown over Dean’s knee. Dean laughed when he felt Cas’s sock rub up against his thigh. Cas woke up and turned over, voice bleary.

“What time is it?”

“I don’t know. Hey. Cas.”

“What?”

“I love you.”

The lightbulbs whined, flared white until the room was bright as day, and then popped with a loud _crack_. Cas apologized, flustered and suddenly closer and closer. The choir of voices in Dean's head got up and left. He picked a shard of glass out of Cas’s hair in the middle of Cas blowing him, and forgot to tell him to take his socks off when afterwards Cas pinned him to the mattress because the guy had to keep saying _I love you, I love you, Dean–_

And it made it hard to focus.

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bless people who write sex scenes bc every time i even MENTION it i have the rip-cord to a parachute in a white-knuckle grip the entire time. but anyways, it's about getting cockblocked by the need for emotional honesty


End file.
